Athens, Greece - March 18 2008
1. Exterior of conference venue
2. Sign: "Athens International Conference on the the return of cultural objects to their countries of origin"
3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, US Marine Reserve:
"One of the things I have learned over the course of the last five years in investigating the trafficking of Iraqi antiquities is that the trafficking and the antiquities themselves is funding the insurgency or the terrorists. The people who are making the bombs and killing innocent men, women and children in Iraq are using the antiquities as a source of funding. Don't get me wrong, they are not the number one source of funding. Kidnappings, extortion are still more significant sources, but the reality is that terrorist organisations are nothing if not adaptive. In Afghanistan we are seeing the Taliban use opium to support their activities, well there is no opium in Iraq but what they have in Iraq in almost limitless supply are antiquities. There are over 12,500 known archaeological sites in Iraq and they are offering the terrorists, the insurgents, a source of income."
FILE: Baghdad, Iraq - May 10 2003
4. Exterior National Museum of Iraq with a hole from a tank shell visible
5. Close up of hole
Athens, Greece - March 18 2008
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, US Marine Reserve:
"Unfortunately the museum is closed except for a few, two, galleries. There are hopes that the museum can open soon, and I must say that I fully support the opening of the museum. It is my firm belief that if we open, we... if the Iraqis people, open the museum, it will get back in the news cycle and people will start to realise what an extraordinary treasure that is contained inside the Iraq museum. I know it will be hard, I know that the security situation is difficult and my response to that is, then double the security, triple the security."
FILE: Baghdad, Iraq - May 10 2003
7. Tilt down from dome of National Museum of Iraq to floor strewn with debris from looting
8. Various of ransacked museum office
Athens, Greece - March 18 2008
9. SOUNDBITE: (English) Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, US Marine Reserve:
"Until each and every piece that was stolen from the Iraqi museum is returned to the Iraqi people, I will continue to be haunted by what is missing."
FILE: Baghdad, Iraq - May 10 2003
10. Various of damaged exhibition room in museum
When Baghdad fell to the U.S.-led coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein in March 2003, the world watched in horror as looters ransacked the museum that housed some of the nation's most prized treasures.
Today, trafficking of stolen Iraqi antiquities is helping to finance al-Qaida in Iraq and Shiite militias, according
to the U.S. investigator who led the investigation into the looting of the National Museum.
U.S. Marine Reserve Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, a New York assistant district attorney called up to duty shortly after 9/11, said that while kidnappings and extortion remain the insurgents' main source of funds, the link between terrorism and antiquities smuggling has become "undeniable."
"The Taliban are using opium to finance their activities in Afghanistan," Bogdanos told The Associated Press in an
interview. "Well, they don't have opium in Iraq. What they have is an almost limitless supply of is antiquities. And
so they're using antiquities."
Bogdanos spoke on the sidelines of a UNESCO-organised international conference in Athens on Monday and Tuesday on returning antiquities to their country of origin.
The murky world of antiquities trafficking extends across the globe and is immensely lucrative - private collectors
can pay tens of millions of dollars for the most valuable artifacts.
It's almost impossible to put an authoritative monetary value on Iraqi antiquities.
But as an indication, the colonel said one piece looted from the National Museum - an 8th century B.C. Assyrian
ivory carving of a lioness attacking a Nubian boy, overlaid with gold and inlaid with lapis lazuli - could sell for
100 million US dollars.
Bogdanos described the route for smuggled Iraqi antiquities as follows: from illegal excavations or plundered museums, they are driven overland either west to Jordan or north to Syria; they are then usually sent to one
of three cities - Beirut, Dubai or Geneva - in order to obtain papers.
They can then be sold on to private collectors or even well-known auction houses.
Bogdanos said the complex routes for the trade in plundered antiquities appear to have generated an underground tariff system.
Bogdanos said the antiquities trade was a valuable source of revenue for insurgents after the U.S.-led invasion.
"There are over 12,500 known archaeological sites in Iraq and they are offering the terrorists, the insurgents, a source of income," he said.
Although security has improved dramatically in Iraq since mid-2007, the country is still violence-ridden, with
bombings and kidnappings a daily occurrence.
In such a climate, it is all but impossible for Iraq's 1,500 archaeological guards to protect the country's more than 12,000 archaeological sites.
It was in the days after the fall of Baghdad in March 2003 that the National Museum was looted.
The U.S. came under intense criticism for not protecting the museum - a treasure trove of antiquities from the stone age and Babylon to the Assyrians and Islamic art.
Bogdanos said that according to the latest inventories, a total of about 15,000 artifacts were stolen.
Of those, about 4,000 have been returned to the museum, and a total of about 6,000 have been recovered.
Bogdanos was already in Iraq searching for banned weapons and investigating terrorist funding when he volunteered to lead the investigation into the looting after the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
Much of the museum's looting was carried out by insiders and senior government officials of the time, said Bogdanos.
